Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (C) (D-FL) arrives for a closed briefing for members of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol June 14, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Mysterious ‘Guccifer 2.0’ Claims DNC Hack, Posts Documents Online

A hacker with the handle “Guccifer 2.0” claimed responsibility for hacking into the server of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and posted documents, including oppositional research on Donald Trump and a list of high priced donors to DNC, on Wednesday, June 15.

“Guccifer 2.0” wrote that more documents were on the way and that he gave them to the whistleblower group Wikileaks.

The documents were originally leaked by the media outlet Gawker on Wednesday afternoon. A WordPress document appeared online with selected documents, along with a rebuke to earlier reports by security firm, CrowdStrike, that Russian hacking groups were responsible.

It is unclear who is behind “Guccifer 2.0,” but the name is an apparent reference to Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar’s handle “Guccifer.” Lazar is a notorious hacker who recently pled guilty to charges of identity theft and unauthorized access to protected computers and has claimed that he hacked into Hillary Clinton’s email server in an interview with NBC last month.

He is currently in a Virginia prison awaiting prosecution.

“Guccifer 2.0” wrote in the WordPress document that breaking into the DNC’s server was “easy, very easy” and said that there were more documents to be leaked through the group Wikileaks who Guccifer 2.0 said will “publish them soon.”

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stated in an interview to ITV via video link on June 12 from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London that there were forthcoming publications with “enough information” to indict Hillary Clinton.

Assange is being arbitrary detained in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape claim, which he denies.

The documents focus on a report called “The Donald Trump Report” which is dated December 19, 2015 and appears to be 200+ page playbook on Hillary Clinton’s strategy to beat Trump in the general election, and a biographical profile about the presumptive nominee.

The documents also lists high profile donors—such as Morgan Freeman and Steven Spielberg—along their donation amount, many showing million of dollars in donations.

The security firm, CrowdStrike, had issued a report that found that two Russian hacking groups—code-named COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR—broke into the databases independent of one another and did not work in collaboration.

CrowdStrike has issued a statement that its analysis of the security breach has not changed, suggesting that Guccifer’s assertions are part of “Russian disinformation” campaign.

“CrowdStrike stands fully by its analysis and findings identifying two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries present in the DNC network in May 2016,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike said in a statement to the Washington Post.

“We are exploring the documents’ authenticity and origin,” he said. “Regardless, these claims do nothing to lessen our findings relating to the Russian government’s involvement, portions of which we have documented for the public and the greater security community.”

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested that it was the DNC that hacked itself and released the documents:

“We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader,” Trump said in a statement to Politico released Wednesday.

“This is all information that has been out there for many years,” the presumptive Republican nominee’s statement read. “Much of it false and/or entirely inaccurate.”

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